Arima Masafumi (1895-1944)

Arima Masafumi was born in Kagoshima prefecture
to a family of Confucian scholars. Graduating from the Naval Academy in
1915, he served on a large
number of ships early
in his career, and graduated from the Naval Staff
College in 1928. He became a naval
aviator in the early 1930s and
commandednaval air stations
just prior to war.

Arima became captain of the Shokaku
on 25 May 1942 and participated in the Battle of Santa
Cruz. Promoted to rear admiral in 1943, he was in command of 26
Air Flotilla in
the Philippines
at the time of the American
invasion in 1944. He proposed that suicide tactics be
employed, and personally led one of
the first special attack missions after tearing off his rank insignia,
on 26 October 1944. The mission accomplished
nothing, but
mistaken reports that a U.S.aircraft
carrier
had been sunk encouraged other commanders to follow a similar path.

Described as "slender, gentle, softspoken"
(Hastings 2007), and as "the picture of dignity" (Inoguchi et al. 1958) who wore his full uniform even in the tropics, he seemed an unlikely candidate to usher in the most
desperate tactic used by the Japanese
during the war.

Service record

1895-9-25

born

1915-12-16

Midshipman

Graduates from Naval Academy, standing 33rd in a class of 95.
Assigned to Iwate